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The saying goes that all roads lead to Rome, but at the end of June, as far as NBLC members were concerned, all roads lead to Harts Range in the Northern Territory.

Harts Range from Plenty Highway N.T.

The major caravan of fossickers, fresh from rest and recuperation at Alice Springs, set out for Gemtree Caravan Park via the Stuart and Plenty Highways. Ray and Jeanine  flew in via Sydney and Ayers Rock ( don’t ask!), Len and Jean arrived via the all bitumen road through Mt Isa and Tennant Creek and Ben and Wendy  took the direct route straight across the Plenty Highway from Boulia.

While the original plan called for the group to camp at Gemtree for 4 nights, after running the gauntlet of all the rules; "no bore water at night", "don’t use talcum powder in the shower", "lights out at 9.30", it was a quite easy decision to move to the solitude of the Mud Tank zircon fields.

The zircon fields cover an area of probably 1.5KM length by about .5 KM wide and after decades of continuous digging it is getting harder and harder to find ground that hasn’t already been dug. There can be nothing more soul destroying in a fossicker’s life than to spend many a sweaty hour turning out sieve after sieve of gravel to eventually strike the ubiquitous Coca Cola can. And it happened to us.

Milton Shows off 2 Zircons from Specimen Hill.

Everyone had their theory about where the best stones were; in the top 6 to 8 inches, on top of the "coral", under the "coral" down to the Apatite. As well, everyone had their ideas on where the best stones were to be found; down on Rabbit Flats, around the back of Specimen Hill, near the tour operator’s site, at the back of the Vemiculite dumps. But at the end of the day (or 4 days in all) I think there was stone found everywhere. It just wasn’t in the size and volume that most had anticipated.

Having said that, I have sorted out the jar full of stones I carried home and probably have about 15 cutting size Zircons, varying in colour from clear to pale pink and plum to pale lemon. The largest stone that I found I specked on top of a mullock heap – a nice shape pale yellow of 10 carats. Milton probably found the largest Zircons in our group although Len and Jean were keeping quite about their secret location so check to see how big Len’s grin is when he returns.

The weather was great at Mud Tank with the official weather reader (Ken) reporting a low temp of –1.9 degrees on 1 morning. Once the sun was up and the picks swinging the cold mornings quickly left. The social activity in the camp was great with Graham  celebrating his birthday. Brother Milton did the honours by producing an excellent damper. Even the "townies" (Len, Jean, Ben and Wendy) made a special trip out to join in the celebrations.

A trip out to the Garnet fossicking areas (marked on the maps as FA9 and FA10) for a day trip was not very successful for us. But then the bush flies probably thought it was a good day – so much fresh blood. Graham  was heard to advise to chew the flies on the "way down" to stop them tickling on the way up.

 

Fossicking for garnets along Plenty Highway.

Although several areas and theories were tried by everyone, again The good quality stone was elusive. Ben and Wendy probably did the best but they earned it the hard way with Ben digging out Garnets from the host rock. We had a bit more luck at another site which we found out about from members of Alice Springs Club. Only smallish chips, but the stones at least were clear, so everyone should have some cutters.

A stopover for ice creams and pies at the Atitjere Aboriginal Community on the way to the Spotted Tiger Camping Ground resulted in a sellout ( well 3 pies was a big order apparently). The camping ground was a huge surprise – a large valley floor, well grassed with Acacias and gum trees in abundance.

Sunrise at Spotted Tiger Camping Ground - Harts Range N.T.

Running water was available at several tap outlets through the camping grounds as well as several shower and washing blocks. Fortunately we stopped at the only one of the shower blocks that had a hot water "donkey". For $10 per night it would have to rate as one of the best outback campsites.

After a day of settling in, Mt. Palmer beckoned with its array of Mica mines and variety of minerals. Only the hardy 5 (Ray, Gary, Carol, Ben and Wendy) set out to follow the camel tracks from Disputed Camp to the Spotted Dog and Disputed Mica mines 1.6KMs up the side of Mt. Palmer. Although the climb is probably rated "easy" by regular walkers several steep climbs made you stop and catch breath. 45 minutes to Spotted Dog and a further easy 8 minutes to the Disputed mine found us standing on the largest imaginable stack of Mica and other minerals disposed in the overburden. We spent an hour at Disputed mine gathering and discarding as better specimens were found. Although no facet quality specimens were located Gary did uncover an area of Feldspar with Beryl crystals and I think we all ended up with some green and yellow specimens. Smokey quartz and Tourmaline were plentiful with Tourmaline in massive crystals but unfortunately no solid pieces. Epidote crystals were also found but again mainly broken pieces. Carol was so enthusiastic in her gathering that she would have needed a complete Camel Train to bring back all of the specimens gathered, necessitating Gary to do a serious cull before we set out back to the cars.

Entire Creek Harts Range N.T.

A further day trip to Entire Creek in search of Iolite resulted in some members finding some small cutters with probably Dave doing the best. I stumbled across some quartz crystals with Tourmaline or Rutile needles and these are already in the tumbler.

Unfortunately after 11 days this part of the trip came to an end with the troupe dispersing in much the same ways as we came together.

Latest news from the trip is that a successful dig for Garnet at Fullerton River ensured everyone has some good size cutting quality stones.